This invention concerns an electronic watch which provides an analogical time display with an analog display unit comprised of a plurality of display segments and also carries out time modification by operating a crown thereof.
There are two types of time displays of traditional electronic watches, one of which is a hand-pointer type having an electro-mechanical converter such as a step motor and the other is a digital type using digital display elements.
The hand pointer type electronic watch has the following defects. It is difficult to produce high precision watches because of error in the actions due to use of mechanical elements and also it is questionable from the stand point of reliability and production cost, and moreover it is difficult to read time in a dark place such as at night time.
Against the above type, with the digital display type time can be read even in a dark place according to use of display elements such as light emitting diodes (LED) and it is possible to achieve high precision, high reliability and low production cost because of the all electronic constructions, but the time reading method of this type has a defect in not being familiar due to the difference from traditional analog display with hand pointers. cl SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This invention has been developed to eliminate the present defects of electronic watches and performs an analog time display suitable to the traditional sense by means of arranging radially a plurality of display segments and driving them one after another in specified direction, and also carries out time modification by operating the watch crown the same as that of a traditional mechanical watch and moreover achieves advanced or retarded time by selecting the turning direction of the crown and further performs digital display of date by providing a digital display unit with a drive coupled with the said analog display unit and enables modification of time and date by changing operational positions of the said crown. Therefore, this invention makes available an electronic watch which provides a readily perceived display of time and enables to modification of the time display forwardly or backwardly the same as in a traditional mechanical watch.
Hereafter, the electronic watch will be described in detail based on an embodiment shown in the accompanying drawings according to this invention.